Oh man, they get absolutely pissed if you hit them +3 times with an axe or net, which is way easier to do by accident than you’d want; if you hit a villager once, the game seems to assume that you want to hit them again, so attempting to interact just results in you pummeling/slashing the villager. I’ve had them tell me I don’t deserve friends, that I’m a freak, that I’m a horrible creature who shouldn’t be around people, etc…
Even if you don’t accidentally or intentionally piss them off, they can be very rude and condescending when you first start playing. They chill out after you start interacting with them (and you have to interact if you want them to treat you nicer), but it can take weeks for them to start doing that. That’s what I love about the GameCube animal crossing; the villagers aren’t tripping over themselves to make you happy. In New Horizons, villagers basically exist to make you happy and feel better about yourself; however, they make it very clear they don’t like you at first in the original.
(Also yes, you can hit villagers with an axe in the OG game and they have a slightly different reaction to it. It’s hard to do though and would seem like a bug if it weren’t for the fact that they react differently to it)